Swords of a False Devil
by Ranryu66
Summary: Are things truly as they seem in this old world?
1. Prologue

Prologue

A giant, silver, and dragon-like being looked out at something only he and his two companions could see in the swirling dimension of energy called the Dimensional Gap. He turned to the Great Red Dragon and a certain ancient Dead Apostle called Zelretch that loved trolling people. He snorted and spoke in a powerful voice that held great sarcasm, "Do you two think I should do it?"

Zelretch smirked as he leaned forward in his chair that he had made in the library he had placed within the Dimensional Gap, "I do believe it would be fun for them to learn the truth about their delusional, former leaders."

Great Red also smirked his draconic smile and said, "I would like to see what the boy does with your power and influence in a world so full of lies."

The powerful silver dragon nodded, "Then let us get down to it then."

The other two pooled their collective energies alongside those of the silver dragon and caused him to split into two identical identities equally as powerful as the original. One turned into a silver gauntlet with a gear and a pair of twin Chinese Dao on the back of the hand, and he was sent out of the Dimensional Gap into a baby that had just been conceived that would one day go by the name of Hyoudou Issei. The other nodded his head to his two compatriots and turned into a white-haired and silver-eyed man dressed in red and black, and he turned and stepped into a small portal that had formed near him, which closed behind him as soon as he stepped through.

Great Red turned to look at Zelretch, "Do you think he can do it?"

Zelretch smirked, "I have confidence in EMIYA, old friend."

Great Red nodded, "Good." With that he started to do his loop-de-loops like some great reptilian biker again.

Zelretch steepled his hands together, "I wonder how things will turn out this time around?"


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Hyoudou Issei was a strange person by any person's way of reasoning, and no he wasn't some kind of pervert. For some reason whenever he was around women he didn't look at them like objects like many of the friends he had once had in school did. He instead saw them as something that could potentially kick his butt. It probably had something to do with his dreams.

When he was younger, he started having dreams of massive fires and death. Every time the only thing he could feel after he woke up was a deep desire to help those whose faces he could not see. His parents had eventually taken him and his younger sister Sakura to a mental health doctor, and the only thing the man could think of was reincarnation and residual memories from a past life where the poor boy had some form of deeply held survivor's guilt.

Needless to say, his parents were not overly impressed with the man. They didn't even let the man talk to Sakura about her strange love for fire and lizards, even though that was tame compared to her brother's issues. The boy started to do everything he could to help people, at no cost to them. He actually got his young light-scented friend Irina on board with playing "hero," but such childhood friendships do not usually end up continuing very closely should one move away. Irina was one such "tragic" child-hood loss.

You may notice that she smelled like light to the young boy, and that is because he could smell whenever there was something unusual about a person. Now don't ask what light might smell like, because it is something you really have to experience for yourself to understand.

The boy was wandering around town the day after his friend had left and he saw an old man talking to a bunch of young kids. It took him only a second to realize that the guy was some sort of deviant who needed a good swift kick to the head. He was too young to do that though, so he found the nearest policeman to do it for him, somehow knowing that something terrible would have happened if he had stuck around to listen to the old man.

Shortly after that his adopted teen brother had started to distance himself from his family. The blond-haired and red-eyed young man still kept in contact with those who had taken him in and taught him love and morals that he hadn't possessed early on in life. Though Issei couldn't figure out why his brother Gilgamesh had moved to the Middle East after graduating, especially considering the fact that he looked neither middle-eastern nor like he was going to convert to one of the three major religions in that area.

As Issei grew, he could not figure out many of the things about himself, like why he wanted to help anyone who asked him to do anything for him, because he was pretty sure that he wasn't a genie. The other was the smelling thing. The poor boy first went to Kuoh Academy when it opened up for boys to attend because his parents wanted him there to be able to keep an eye on his sister when she would start to attend the next year. The first day he had walked in the door, he had smelled numerous over-powering scents and there seemed to be something near the gate. He had managed to shake it off and power his way through the day until it had become normal.

He had gradually started to go around helping people in any way that he could, and he found that he had a knack for fixing equipment around the school and had somehow ended up with the moniker of "fake janitor." His two best friends Matsuda, the schools most talented sports star, and Motohama, a boy who had somehow ended up with the ability to know what is wrong with something with a single look when he was wearing his glasses, which were given to him by his great-uncle, who was a self-proclaimed magician, usually followed him and helped him out, and Issei found it odd that he could do basically the same thing as Motohama, but without glasses. The three of them quickly became renowned as heroes in the school, often times being the ones to corner any pervert that tried to pull anything funny at school. Considering the fact that Matsuda was already an eighth dan in about six different forms of martial arts while working almost twenty others up into the dan rankings at a fast pace, Issei was also incredibly strong and durable because of his desire to help people carrying him to great lengths to be able to achieve that goal, and Motohama was also able to see a person's weaknesses with just a look, enabling him to use an improvised form of pressure-point therapy on his friends and victims alike, the three of them were able to do quite a bit of non-lasting damage to any who would dare be rude to the girls of their school.

The boys had just finished off with one of their "discussions" with one such pervert when Issei felt someone was watching him, and he had stopped momentarily to look up into the window of the old-school building. The red-headed young woman Rias Gremory was looking at him, and he could smell her and her friends even at this distance. The other two stopped as well and looked at the stunning woman looking at them curiously. Issei had never understood it, but he was drawn to her for some reason, despite the fact that she smelled like a weird combination of Honey, Entropy, and something else that he couldn't seem to identify. The red-headed foreigner smiled at them and nodded her head to them in acknowledgement, and Issei's two partners bowed politely to her and pulled Issei into one as well. When they looked up again, she was gone. They smirked to each other and then ran to get to class so that they wouldn't be late.

Afterwards Issei was approached by a young girl he had never seen before, and she asked him to take her out on a date. Issei's response was less than stellar for someone who wanted a date, "Can I bring my little sister along? My parents are going to be out on a date of their own and want me to look after her."

Surprisingly enough, the girl smiled, "Yes you can."

He bowed his head to her and said politely, "I will be looking forward to it."

After she started walking away he pumped his hand in the air, because despite his good reputation, no girl seemed to want to actively pursue him. So this was a first for him, and as he almost skipped home that night, he called his two friends and told them what had happened. They instantly wanted all the details, and he told them what little he knew. Something about it didn't sit right with them, so the bald martial-artist sports star convinced his glasses wearing friend to help him stalk Issei the next day to make sure everything would go well with their buddy on his first date.

Issei's parents also permitted it while reminding him that his brother was coming by for a visit within the month. His little sister almost started jumping around because she was going to be able to go into town with her beloved big brother. He went to sleep that night with a smile on his face because of his impending date, and for the first time in a long while, something was different within his dreams.

He looked around the waste land he had found himself in. The sky, which seemed to be in a perpetual state of smog-induced twilight, held great gears that turned slowly and continuously, the reflection of this strange scene was in the thousands of swords and other miscellaneous weapons he could see stuck in the ground around him. He felt that they were all important, but he couldn't figure out why. He turned and saw a man sitting on the only hill that was visible through the smoke, clouds, and fire that hung around the edge of this world. His black and red clothed back was leaning against a gold and blue sheath being held up by a pair of crisscrossed and somewhat similar looking swords. His white, windswept hair was pointed backwards, and he seemed to be reading a book that was open in his lap, with a pile of cards and various different game pieces sitting next to him, haphazardly "organized."

Issei started to walk towards him, when he heard the strange man speak, "You know, Master, it isn't all that nice to keep me locked up in here when there could be danger."

Issei made to say something, but he was rudely punted back into consciousness by his little sister shaking him, rather roughly, to get him up for his "big date."

-SFD-

The day started off with the usual breakfast-time family antics, I am sure that you all at least know some of them. The mad scramble to figure out how the eggs are going to be cooked, or whether there even will be eggs or something else, like a western cereal that Issei's mom had taken a liking to; the coffee being too hot for one parent and too cold for the other; and which child would get the bathroom first. The fact that this wasn't a school day was actually the reason for the mad dashing around the house. Issei's two friends were certainly amused by the family's antics from the positions they took up outside the home to stalk Issei on his date.

Issei finally got out of the door while holding his sister's hand, and his two friends sticking to the shadows behind, but he knew they were there because of their unusual scents, Matsuda smelt almost like an animal and constantly sweaty, and Motohama smelt like a bunch of old books. Part of the reason he had accepted the date was because the girl smelt much more strongly of light than his old friend Irina, though something seemed off about it somehow. He made it to the bridge near the shopping district of the town, and was given a strange pamphlet by a young girl who was dressed weirdly and smelled like a bat.

He looked it over, it had a weird symbol on it and words that cause him to raise his eyebrow and say, "Your wish will be granted, hmm? Weird." He stuffed the paper in his pocket and smiled at the young light-smelled girl approaching him.

She smiled gently back, "Hello, Issei."

He smirked slightly as his sister jumped up and down, "Hi, Miss Yuuma!"

She smiled at the excited young girl, "You seem more excited than your brother for this date."

Issei nodded slightly, then started shaking his head at Sakura's antics, "She doesn't get to go into town very often."

The black-clad girl smiled and reached out her hand to Issei so their date could start. Issei took her hand and gradually began the slow process of showing the girl the town, such as it was. His two friends both thinking that it would have been a very sweet date, if they still hadn't sensed that there was something off about it. The feeling of wrongness the two had increased when the girl took a brief break to call some of her friends and didn't display any of the usual behaviors of a girl on her first date gushing to friends about how great it was.

After a long day on the pathways and looking into the shops around town, the five people ended up in the park, and this is where the fateful question that decides the life of all the different versions of Hyoudou Issei comes up. Issei is sitting on the bench with Yuuma, Sakura is playing with the water in the nearby fountain, and Matsuda and Motohama are hiding out in the bushes nearby.

Yuuma stands up and, after pulling Issei up, asks, "In honor of our first date, will you die for me?"

The two friends instantly start to make a move forwards, and they both end up stabbed from behind and shoved into the pavement near their friend. He turned to her with a questioning and horrified look. His sister screaming as she is also suddenly stabbed by a backwards thrust of a spear made of light that had appeared in Yuuma's hands. The girl transformed before his eyes into an older woman with massive black-wings bursting out of her back, her clothes shredding and reforming in almost an instant into something very inappropriate for younger eyes. A detached part of his brain said that if his younger sister wasn't currently face-down on the pavement with a hole in her chest he would have been covering her eyes and telling the woman to put some clothes on. He never got the chance to do or say anything as two spears suddenly jutted out of his stomach and chest at the same time.

As he was falling to the ground he heard the man and woman behind him chuckle darkly, the trench-coated man saying, "That was fun, we should do this more often."

The woman and Yuuma rolled their eyes at the man and say at the same time, "Come on you bloodthirsty old-fart."

They all leapt off the ground, leaving the four humans to die in pools of their own blood. Issei looked at the faces of his friends and sister who had already lost the fight for consciousness but not death. He remembered the pamphlet in his pocket, and called out to the only person he could think of, "Help us, Rias Gremory."

The pamphlet started to shine as it slowly slid from his fingers. A circle inscribed itself on the ground next to him, from which appeared the most beautiful girl at the school, Rias Gremory. A pair of black, bat-like wings were on full display on her back after she had appeared to see them all lying there, close to death.

The young woman started to move toward Issei, but he grabbed her leg in a vise-grip and coughed out, blood running from one corner of his mouth "Please, help them first." And with that last bit strength, he finally expired, letting out the final gasp of the dead.

Rias shook her head as she looked sadly at the young boy, "I am sorry, I could not have gotten here sooner."

The red-head held out her hand, in which were four blood-red chess pieces and three of them were glowing brighter than the other. She place one of them on the chest of each of the people there, the dimmest one going on Motohama. She then spoke something as a magic circle formed beneath each of them, "You will now live your lives for my sake, and I for yours. You will be my servants and I your master. Arise as servants of house Gremory."

The pawn pieces sunk into their targets, and seconds later black wings similar to hers appeared from three of their backs, while the wounds on all of them instantly started mending themselves. She instantly ran over to Issei, wondering what had gone wrong so that he wasn't a devil. She saw that her connection with him was stable, and he had somehow been enhanced like the others, despite staying human. Though what held her attention wasn't any of that; what was holding her undivided attention was the way he was healing. She moved aside his shirt and saw that she hadn't missed her guess, and his wounds were almost completely filled in with steel blades, which were slowly converting back into unblemished flesh.

A deep and sarcastic voice startled her, **"What are you looking at Rias Gremory?"**

She instantly looked wildly about, "Who are you, and were you the one to do this to them?"

She heard a dry sounding chuckle, **"Kind of hard to kill one's own host, don't you think?"**

That caused her to look down and realize that the voice was coming from a blinking white light on the back of Issei's right hand, "A Sacred Gear?"

She could almost hear the smirk, **"Indeed, I am the reason why the boy didn't turn into a dark-kin like you."**

She looked at the blinking light in astonishment, "How, and is it your power that is healing him that way?"

The older sounding voice snarked, **"Why would a magician reveal all his secrets to the first pretty girl to ask him?"**

She scowled at him with a slight tinge of pink on her cheeks, "Please just answer the question, considering you are within my new servant."

**[Sigh] "So impatient. Yes it is my power causing him to heal that way, and the reason why he didn't turn into a child of darkness like you is because my presence is both extremely powerful and overwhelmingly human. When your pawn entered him, my presence changed the nature of the pawn so that it follows the rules of Heroic Spirits and Servants, instead of the rules of your kind's peerage system, to a degree."**

She looked at him intrigued, "What is this other system?"

**"The piece changed so that instead of being able to promote to one of the four different chess classes, the boy will be able to change from an unclassed servant into one of the twenty Servant Classes that Heroic Spirits can be summoned as, and they are Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, Berserker, Ruler, Avenger, Alter Ego, MoonCancer, Foreigner, Shielder, Saver, Gunner, Faker, Gatekeeper, Watcher, Beast, and Boxer."**

Her eyes widened, "What exactly are Heroic Spirits?"

The voice seemed to contemplate the answer for a second, **"Something not native to this universe, so you really wouldn't have a comparison, but they are the spirits of legendary heroes, villains, monsters, and gods that have passed from life and become enshrined in a realm outside of time and space that is called the Throne of Heroes. Upon being summoned they essentially get a portion of their power poured into a container that is fashioned after the body they had in life, and they become the top class of familiar, many times stronger than their summoner. If they disagree with their summoner's vision, they usually end up killing their summoner so they can return to the Throne."**

Rias looked stunned, both by what was said and the fact that his abnormal healing method had finished, "How strong are the two of you then?"

She could, again, almost hear the smirk, **"He is an unclassed Servant with no legend tied to this version of him. What do you think that means?"**

Rias contemplated it for a second, "That he is weak."

The voice drawled out, **"Very astute of you, but he is only weak by our standards. Physically he would be able to go toe-to-toe with the higher end of those who are considered middle-class in your society, and magically, his power is nothing to sneeze at, even by the upper end of you high class dark-kin, but it is still only the barest portion of the power which I possess, even in my most basic form as a Sacred Gear."**

Rias asked, "Then what about you?"

She heard a dry chuckle, **"After having three Sacred Gears fuse with me, I became the top Heroic Spirit, and a being that is technically more powerful then Great Red."**

Rias' eyes widened to comical levels, "Why place yourself in him then?"

She could almost hear the shrug, **"Boredom. There is no version of Hyoudou Issei that does not lead an interesting life."**

Rias' left eyebrow twitched slightly, "Perhaps we should take this somewhere that isn't half-coated in blood?"

The voice almost seemed intrigued now, **"Where would you propose that?"**

Rias looked at him skeptically as she formed a magic circle near her ear, "My clubhouse, where else, did you think I was just going to leave my newly resurrected servants lying in pools of their own blood, or take them home with their blood-stained clothes and leave them there wishing this was all just some bad dream?"

The voice sounded impressed, **"Considering the fact that that is what almost every other version of you usually does with the boy? Yes."**

Rias snorted as she finished contacting Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko, "Then those other versions of me were failures as both kings and people."

She almost didn't catch what he said in watching her peerage appear before her in a new magic circle, **"Indeed."**

Her friends saw what had happened, and Akeno raised an eyebrow, "Need help carting them off to the clubroom Rias?"

Rias nodded, "Yes, Akeno. Can you please each grab one of them and help carry them into the circle?"

The three of them nodded slightly, and Akeno picked up Motohama, Kiba picked up Matsuda, Koneko picked up Sakura, and Rias gently picked up Issei and the others saw the dull light on the back of his right hand, but they did not question it yet. They moved back to the circle on some unspoken signal, and vanished from that place, a residual spell causing all the blood that was in the area to disintegrate into ash.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Most people would have probably been out for a long time after they are suddenly brought back from the dead, but Issei was awake almost as soon as he was set on the couch in the Occult Research Clubroom. The boy gasped awake, sitting upright and, holding his chest where he had been stabbed with his right hand. He looked around and saw that his friends and sister were lying down near him, holes in their shirts, but otherwise there was no sign of their murder.

He also noticed the rather noticeable foreign red-head standing almost right next to him saying, "Welcome back to the land of the living."

He looked at her bewildered for only a second, and then comprehension settled in, "I was dead."

She noticed it was a statement, "And I resurrected you."

His look turned into a calculating look that he had inherited from the entity sealed within his Sacred Gear, whether he realized it or not, "So, am I your servant now?"

Rias nodded, "Yes, but you are different from all the rest of my servants."

He raised an eyebrow at her, "How would I be different?"

She smirked slightly, "You are still human."

He suddenly heard a voice come from his right hand, **"You wouldn't be able to turn inhuman with me here."**

He faintly heard a male voice off to the side say something that sounded like, "Longinus."

Before he could say anything, the voice within his hand snorted, **"Not quite, Kiba Yuuto. I am far more powerful than any mere Longinus."**

Rias was about to start speaking when she got another urgent summons similar to the first one she had today from Issei. Her eyebrow went up as she shrugged and stepped back into the circle, leaving her friends behind to deal with the situation and explain everything to Issei.

-SFD-

Yuuki Asuna's eyes widened as she saw a red circle form next to her and the poisoned and downed Kirigya Kazuto. A stunning foreigner with long crimson hair and bat-like wings appeared in the center, and she face-palmed upon seeing the state the two people were in.

The red-head sighed, "I am assuming that your wish is for me to save him, and that you will give anything for that to happen?"

Asuna nodded, wide-eyed and with tears streaming from her eyes, and said, "Can you help him? Even though I have no idea how you got here."

Rias sighed again, "I am Rias Gremory, and you somehow managed to summon me. I can save him, but if I do so, he will no longer be human, and…"

Asuna cut her off, "Do it, and take me as well."

Rias summoned her four remaining pawns to her hand and asked, "Are you sure about this? There is no going back once you have decided to do this."

Asuna nodded her head as Kazuto surprisingly managed to get out a small, "Do it."

Rias nodded as a pair of her remaining pawns floated over Kazuto and settled on his chest, "You will now live your life for my sake, and I for yours. You will be my servant and I your master. Arise as a servant of house Gremory."

Asuna's eyes widened even further when a pair of jet-black bat-like wings shot from her beloved boyfriend's back and the color and life returned to him. He sat up holding his chest where the needle had entered him, and said, "That almost felt like reviving in game."

All Asuna could do in response to that was a very audible face palm, and Rias raised an eyebrow and then motioned for Asuna to step in front of her while holding the remaining pawns in front of her. Asuna did so and closed her eyes as a sign of trust; after having seen that Kazuto was okay, she figured that Rias wouldn't renege on her word and that she would be fine. The pawns entered her as Rias said the same thing for the third time in the same night, and bat-like wings shot from her back as well.

Kazuto instantly was nearly on top of her, checking to make sure that she was okay and checking out her wings at the same time. Asuna ended up back-handing her boyfriend with her right wing when she was about to attempt to tell him to stop. This sight caused Rias to giggle, and it assuaged any fears she might have had about them being able to fit in with the rest of her Peerage. The two of them heard her, and realizing she was still there, they instantly gave her the very formal Japanese bow and said together, "Thank you, Miss Gremory."

She smiled slightly and waved her hand in the air, "Please do not bow to me, and please call me Rias or Buchou."

Asuna raised an eyebrow and asked, "Buchou?"

Rias nodded, "Yes, I am the president of the occult research club at Kuoh Academy."

Kazuto blinked and tilted his head sideways, "Isn't that the very prestigious school that was all-female until fairly recently?"

Asuna gave him the start of a stink-eye, "And why are you looking at all-girl schools, Kirito?"

He started waving his hands around in the air wildly, "I'm not; my mom was interested in sending me there if they were finally finished with us at the government school."

Rias dismissed the Kirito thing as some form of nickname and her eyebrow went up, "Why would you be at a government school?"

Both of them winced slightly, and Kazuto slowly asked, "Have you ever heard of SAO?"

Rias nodded, confused, "A number of people from the various supernatural factions got stuck inside it, including a good friend of mine that I haven't seen since she got out."

Asuna's eyes widened, and she said, "You just got the top two players from SAO as your servants."

Rias' eyes widened in astonishment, "How? The entire supernatural community has their eyes on you then, and it should have taken more than a couple pawns each to turn you into devils like me."

Kazuto shrugged, "Mysteries of the universe?"

Rias sighed as she slid her hand down her face, "You got that right."

It was silent for a couple seconds, then Asuna asked, "What now?"

Rias shook her head and said, "I will bring you with me to meet the rest of my servants."

The two of them watched as she formed another magic circle underneath the them all, and they were suddenly away from the street where Kazuto had been stabbed with a drug-filled needle and inside an old Victorian style building with a bunch of other people, most of whom were just standing around looking gob smacked, except for the little girl who was hugging and crying into the leg of the boy who was probably her big-brother.

Rias raised an eyebrow, "What has been happening here?"

Akeno was the one to answer after they all looked around for a second, "According to the being sealed within Issei, we aren't devils."

Rias blinked and asked, "What?"

They all heard a slight snort, **"There is a reason why I called you dark-kin instead of the name your kind are commonly known as in this world. All of you, including you so-called high-class 'devils' are in fact descended from humans who were altered by the combined efforts of this universes aspects of creation and destruction. These two beings are commonly called 'God' and 'Trihexa,' but their true names are Primus and Unicron, and they also were once human, but they were modified by their father through the use of very very very highly advanced science that gave them powers unimaginable to most humans, and that power came to be called magic, which you all inherited and wield without any understanding of what it is you control."**

Rias stumbled over to her chair and sat down, completely forgetting to introduce Asuna and Kazuto, "Are you sure?"

They all heard a dry chuckle, **"Considering I have one of them trapped within me, and I know the basis for all the rules he put in place, which he deeply regrets and is sorry for, I would say that I have the basis for being quite certain of my rightness. Oh look, it seems you have brought us two very powerful Heroic Spirit Candidates."**

They all looked at Kazuto and Asuna in slight astonishment, cause the rest had gotten his Heroic Spirit spiel while Rias was gone, and before either could say anything, Rias asked, "What do you mean by Heroic Spirit Candidates?"

The voice seemed contemplate it for a second, **"I told all but those two how a Heroic Spirit is formed, and these two happen to be very famous and are considered heroes of the highest caliber. The Servant versions of Kirito in particular are not someone you want to take lightly, his skills with a blade, and the sheer number of blades he possesses as a Heroic Spirit is second only to me and Gilgamesh, and that includes a version of Excalibur that can shatter any blade or defensive armament that is lesser in rank than it and a sword that warps reality to the user's wishes with a single swing. The classes that Asuna can be summoned under are only Saber, Caster, and Ruler with an unusually high agility stat for her class. The classes that Kirito can be summoned under include Saber, Caster, Berserker, Rider, Assassin, Ruler, Avenger, Saver, Gunner, and Beast."**

Everyone was astonished at the sheer volume of Servant classes that Kazuto could be summoned under, and even though the other two couldn't fully understand what was being talked about, they understood that the sheer number of classes that Kirito could be summoned under was ridiculously enormous.

Rias basically exploded at this point, "Then how the heck was he only worth two pawns?"

They all heard the snort, **"Because your evil piece system can only quantify magic potential and physical skill potential. His magic potential is completely undetectable because of his natural Element and Origin, so his skills with a sword and his quick reaction speed are the only thing factored into the reincarnation process, which should be more properly called a body-transmutation-soul-modification-and-rebinding process."**

Imagine all of them with swirls in their eyes and you will understand that their minds had just been blown. Kazuto asked, "What are an Element and Origin?"

The voice almost seemed to smirk while talking, **"A lot of this is highly theoretical so I will give you the dumbed-down version. An Origin is the idea upon which your life revolves around and is the reason for your existence, but it can be changed. Case in point, the dark-kin's Evil Piece system adds the origin of darkness to those that it changes, along with their natural origin, and all natural born devils, with only a few exceptions, have that origin naturally. It is that Origin that make it so their weakness is light, because it is the natural opposite to their existence, and because light dispels and does away with darkness, being stabbed with it, or in a place surrounded by a bounded field made from the runes for light, is a natural acid-like poison that weakens them and eats away at their bodies. An Element is the natural process of the world that you are most adept with. The example of this would be Rias, whose natural Element is both Destruction and Darkness, then again, her Origin is also Destruction and Darkness, making her an Incarnation of Destruction and Darkness, which is the same as her brother."**

Rias scowled slightly, "Then why am I not as powerful as my brother?"

The voice sighed, **"You actually have an equal amount of potential as your brother, but you have not one, but two seals placed upon your power. One was placed before you were born so that there wouldn't be a repeat of what happened with your brother when he was born and growing up, and the other is a self-made one that you imposed on yourself when you were much younger and accidentally destroyed your favorite doll in a temper tantrum. You have access to maybe about five-percent of your actual power by this world's standards, and the reason for that is because the seals have only gotten stronger with time, and you have only really been using the power granted to you by your Gremory Seal in combination with maybe about one percent of your actual power, combined with the fact that the Gremory Seal really isn't designed to channel the destructive energy of the Bael Family, you are using less than a half-a-percent of your full destructive potential."**

All the eyes of those who had met her brother were instantly popping out of their sockets, and Kazuto asked for the sake of those not in the know, "What is so special about her brother?"

Akeno was the one who answered, "He is the ruler of Hell, the strongest devil to ever live, and among the ranks of the top ten most powerful beings in the world."

**"And if he utilized his power in the same manner that I do mine then he would be able to go toe-to-toe with his ancestor's mindless and conscienceless body that is called Trihexa and come out on top with only minor injuries."**

Rias and Akeno both looked like they were about to pass out at that bit of information, and Kiba asked, "Could you show us how to utilize our power that way?"

**"I was planning on doing so anyways, and part of that is undoing the seal Rias' father placed on her power and giving Kirito and Asuna access to their servant powers."**

Issei blinked, "How would that work? You told us that being a Heroic Spirit and a dark-kin at the same time is impossible, and that I am weak by the reckoning of Heroic Spirits. Why would it be any different for them?"

The voice contemplated for a second, **"When you are a Heroic Spirit, your power comes from the legends about you. There is actually a Heroic Spirit version of you that is also a devil, but in this timeline you were already technically a Heroic Spirit because of my influence. You are a Heroic Spirit that has no legend, and in your case, if you were to be given and use the power of the Heroic Spirit version of you, his couple thousand years, super-dark-kin-dragon-hybrid, and MAJORLY PERVERTED existence would either completely overwrite yours or your body would disintegrate from trying to handle that much power, either way this version of you is effectively dead. In comparison, the feats that these two are most remembered for as Heroic Spirits have already been accomplished, and in their case, because they are already dark-kin, adding their power as Heroic Spirits would instead be beneficial to them. Part of being supernaturally enhanced is a greater level of body adaptability, their power as Heroic Spirits would complement their existence as dark-kin, and their 'new' bodies would be able to adapt to that kind of power almost instantaneously. As you were a Heroic Spirit first, anything that becomes part of you will have to be because of the beliefs that others have about you, so your chances of growing bat-wings is slim to none. **

**"Heroic Spirits as a rule, with only one exception, gain their power because of their legends, and it does not matter where or how that legend comes about. For example, Siegfried is an easily recognizable name to most, but the name of the actual hero was Sigurd. The two have become two separate Heroic Spirits with Sigurd being the original and Siegfried being the copy that has become distinctly different and weaker than the original because of the differences in their legends, despite having come from the same source material. There is also a collection of very powerful Heroic Spirits that are purely fictional, having been made up in the minds of men and written down into very popular stories, but you, my host, have no legend to your name at all, making it so your power is essentially at the weakest it can possibly be for a Servant and still be considered a Servant."**

Rias snapped out of it after this verbal beat-down and was about to get things going back towards the direction of getting everybody caught up on the who was who and what was what, when little Sakura latched on to something that had been said earlier, "You said big-brother's name."

The others looked at her in confusion, and Issei asked, "What do you mean, Sakura?"

She pointed at the back of her brother's wrist, "He mentioned Gilgamesh's name."

Issei's eyes widened as he heard the chuckle coming from the voice, **"That must have been one of the surprises that Zelretch was planning for me. Gilgamesh is the second most powerful Heroic Spirit in existence after me, and it seems that my world's version of him got sent to this world, de-aged, and adopted into the Hyoudou family when he was in that very young state, and this new version of him isn't a true Heroic Spirit anymore, which is actually a good thing if you ever study his legend. He is ten times kinder and more loving in this reality then he ever was in mine. It will be interesting to see which timeline specifically that he is from."**

Rias' eyes widened, "Does this mean…?"

**"Yes, Issei's parents know about the existence of magic, me, and the overgrown lizard that is still asleep within Sakura."**

Those who already knew about Sacred Gear's eyes widened considerably, and Rias asked, "Is she…"

**"This generation's Red Dragon Emperor? Yes. Now, I think that you should get back to clearing up confusion with each other while I take a nap."**

They all just stood there for a few seconds, dumbfounded, before they decided to listen to his words and do just that, with little more coming up that was life-changing, other than the obvious things, now that he seemed to be asleep, when he was in fact busy cursing out Zelretch and Great Red for their warped senses of humor.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Eventually EMIYA did tell them his name, and fulfilled his promise to start on training them after everyone, including the parents of the affected and formerly human parties had been notified, this was one condition that EMIYA would not budge on for any reason whatsoever. Rias had surprisingly agreed and their first training session was the very next day after school with all the parents there to watch their kids to judge whether they would condone them fighting and asked for the right to say no, Kazuto's sister Suguha was there as well. Rias had assured the parents that she always treated her Peerage Members like family, and that they by extension would be under the protection of her house if they so wished.

EMYIA started off by making Issei trace the class cards of Kirito in one hand and the class cards of Asuna in the other. He spoke out loud so that everyone, including their parents, could hear, **"These will connect you with your doubles in the Throne of Heroes and make you into true Heroic Spirits like your counterparts. Your power will not be based upon the system of your new kind, but rather the legends you generate about yourselves. It does not matter how the legends get their start or how you gain the stories about you, so in your cases it will probably be beneficial for you if you continue to play video-games, sorry for saying that parents, but it is the truth that they can now end up more healthy and powerful by playing video-games. Now, to fuse these with your bodies, hold them up to your chests and say, 'Group Install Fusion.'"**

The two did as he said, and a brilliant red magic circle different from any that Rias had ever seen, and that the parents were definitely surprised by, appeared underneath both of them. It split into two mirror images, one staying on the ground and the other passing up their bodies and over their heads where it stopped. A rather brilliant and flashy lightshow proceeded to cause all to turn their heads and look away, with those who were mystically aware being shocked at the amount of raw power pulsing from the two glowing figures. The light-show lasted only a few seconds before dissipating to reveal Kirito in all his black-swordsman glory, with the "demonic" Elucidator and "holy" Dark Repulser strapped to his back and Asuna in her regal Knights of the Blood Oath Second in Command uniform, with her trusty "holy" Lambent Light at her side. Both of them were easily felt by the mystically aware as something powerful, with Kiba twitching slightly to be in the presence of not one, but two "Holy Swords" more powerful than those in his past.

Kirito took his trusty swords out of their sheaths and swung both of them around with ease and wonder. Asuna also took out Lambent Light to swing a little as well with a gentle smile on her face that shocked her mother into realizing that Asuna was not the little girl, who was always trying to please her mother, she had once been.

Kirito then tilted his head sideways as he put his swords back into their sheaths as he started what was probably his favorite magic chant from Alfheim, "Seā urāza nōto diputo, ren herubegūru!"

Suguha instantly recognized it and smacked her forehead as the pillar of fire formed around him and expanded upwards and outwards, and then vanished revealing a version of the monster that Asuna also knew very well. The pointed ivory teeth within a goat-like head with glowing red eyes and golden spiraling horns coming from the back of it, and the vaguely humanoid body, with massive claws on the end of its hands and feet, and with a dark purplish-blue Cobra for a tail coming out the rear. It was, without a doubt, a being almost identical to the boss on Aincrad's Seventy-fourth Floor, and it was her beloved Kirito that had turned into the massive monstrosity.

An extra feature sprouted from his back in the form of the bat-like wings of the dark-kin, and they were truly massive on a scale that none there had ever seen the like. The wings unfurled with a snap as he held his hands out wide and released a roar that shook the earth and caused a pressure wave that knocked everyone within thirty meters of him down to the ground. Fire was spewing from his mouth and the snake-tail was busy hissing its displeasure to the world at the same time. Everyone there was looking at him in fear of the suddenly quantifiable power they could feel rolling off him, which Rias easily could tell was greater, by a large margin, than the majority of those who were considered high-class in her society. She would even say that it was almost into the lower end of the ultimate class.

Sona had by this time grabbed her peerage and run outside her office inside the school to see what was going on, and she almost slid into a defend-the-school-from-a-super-powerful-stray mode, until she saw Rias waving her off. She managed to hold her peerage in check before they could make a move to attack, except Saji who managed to launch the tongue from his gecko-like Sacred Gear at Kirito, who felt it wrap around his tail. He looked down at it, and then snorted as he ignored it and checked out his new body. The others managed to get themselves off the ground and brushed off, with more than a few of them mentally wiping sweat from their brows at managing to refrain from peeing their pants.

Asuna shook her head as Kirito flexed his impressive physic a little more before dissipating the transformation and standing there in his normal black attire, his light armor and swords disappeared back into wherever it is that Heroic Spirits drop their weapons and armor when they don't feel like wearing them. She then did the same for her armor and sword and smacked Kazuto upside the head for his usual lunacy. She then pulled him to her when he started to protest and whispered furiously in his ear with their parents watching with hawk-like eyes for any impropriety or any sign that these weren't their children anymore, and Saji was gaping because his Sacred Gear had been completely ignored and rendered useless and limp on the floor with the transformation of a giant monster into a boy slightly smaller than him with slightly ambiguous features.

Rias shook her head, "That was… Eye-opening."

EMIYA snorted inside his place in Issei's right hand, **"Indeed. Now, for the next part of the training, Issei here is going to call me into the real world in a Servant body for this next part, so that there is no chance of him screwing something up and accidentally destroying both of the seals on your power and your connection to your pieces."**

Issei quickly and hotly protested, "Hey! I wouldn't do that."

**"Not intentionally, but you don't have as much experience with, or knowledge of, the different weapons that I have access to, even though my power will be severely limited by becoming a Servant for a brief period of time."**

Akeno asked, "Why would your power be limited?"

**"Because this will reduce me to my pre-Sacred Gear state and leave me inside of a Servant body, which only contains a portion of a Heroic Spirit's power."**

Rias asked after thinking for a second, "Why are you even willing to do this?"

**"Because I know all about the reason you want to get stronger, your arranged marriage to Riser, who already possesses his own little harem."** The last word was spoken with such contempt and venom that it caused more than a few of them to flinch, especially Saji and Mr. Hyudou, who had thought about such things at least a couple times.

Kazuto and Suguha's Mom raised an eyebrow, well aware of her daughters own weird affections, "I take it you don't approve?"

The ancient Counter Guardian snorted, **"They never end well, and the homes that come about because of them are because the man in charge views women as mere objects to sate his base lusts. The women and children also always end up competing against one another and violence is common. Hatred, disgust, and contempt are the only things that can come of any kind of relationship even remotely similar. I have a better view of women than that, but unfortunately, when I was a few million years younger, less experienced, and pre-Heroic Spirit living idiot, I had what amounted to my own harem, and it ended in heart-ache and violence. Do you think that women who have their husbands cheat on them for another woman are ever happy with them? Harems are merely "legalized" cheating that degrades women and shows the sleaziness, sex-obsession, and power hunger of men, or the other way around if it is the woman in charge of multiple men."**

The parents were all nodding their heads at this, and they all found themselves glad that their kids at least had one good role-model in their lives who would speak wisdom to their kids. This little spiel also caused Rias and Sona to evaluate why their own immediate families didn't practice polygamy despite it being okay in their culture, and they quickly realized that it was as much an act of love as an act of wisdom and necessity, to keep order and love in the things they are in charge of.

Issei then raised an eyebrow because EMYIA told him what to do to accomplish the next thing, so he knelt and placed his hand in front of him on the ground and said, "Alter and Combine." Green lines traced their way along his arm and into the earth causing the ground to shift and form a magic circle made of Platinum with multiple strange symbols that Sona only marginally recognized, and even then, not really. The ground around it seemed to fuse with the circle and symbols seamlessly so that it formed a half an inch thick disk that was roughly three feet in circumference. Issei took his hands off as it started to glow on its own and started chanting:

"For the elements Silver and iron, the foundation stone and the archduke of pacts and for my great master Schweinorg.

"Close the four gates, come forth from the crown, and follow the forked road leading to the kingdom.

"Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill; Repeat every five times, but when each is filled destroy it.

"Set.

"Heed my words, my will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny.

"If you heed the Grails Call, and obey my will and reason then answer me.

"I hereby swear that I shall be all the good in the world, that I shall defeat all evil in the world.

"Seventh heaven clad in the great words of power, come forth from the great circle of binding, thou Guardian of the Scales!"

The circle by the end had a swirling and very bright tornado of magical energy surrounding it that seemed to explode outwards in a cacophony of wind, light, and sound. The smoke gradually dissipating to reveal a man, who stood at six feet and one inches tall, with white hair, silver eyes, and a black and red set of armor with silver highlights.

EMIYA smirked as he looked at the slightly shocked faces around him, "Did you expect me to look like something other than a human?"

Rias nodded, "Yes, actually, I did."

He chuckled slightly as Issei seemed to stumble for a second, "Easy there, partner. Summoning and maintaining a Servant uses up a lot of mana. You are lucky that I am almost always an Archer class Servant."

Issei's worried mom asked, "Why is that?"

He half-smirked, "Archer class servants possess a Class Skill called Independent Action that is usually EX Ranked and allows us to survive at least two days without using any mana from a master, and because of the differences between worlds, I could actually last almost three weeks without using any of his mana outside of the summoning ritual itself, if I paced myself and didn't do much fighting. Kirito over there actually possesses the same skill if he is summoned, no matter the class that he takes, lucky for him that he is actually an unsummoned Heroic Spirit instead of a summoned Servant, so he doesn't have to worry about relying on a Master to supply him with mana like I do if I want to get outside the Sacred Gear for a while. As Issei gets more used to my power it will be easier for him to summon me from inside the Sacred Gear and maintain my existence in the real world." He then formed a strangely colored, crooked dagger in his right fist, and then held it up as mana started to gather along the edge of the strange blade, "This is what I will use to dispel the seal your father placed on your power, and I am going to use it to return your body to its natural state so that all your mana can go towards fighting instead of maintaining a false outwards appearance."

Rias crossed her arms under her chest, "I grew these completely naturally."

He shook his head as the others also started to realize what the two of them were talking about, "Not as much as you like to think, Rias Gremory. In fact, magic that maintains a false outwards appearance is more costly than any other kind of magic, except for using high-level projection magecraft like I use, which my body technically couldn't handle, so it warped my appearance into what you see before you now. That is where the other four percent of your destructive potential is going, Rias." EMIYA looked at Akeno out of the corner of his eye, "It is the same way with you as well Akeno, though your 'lack' of power is also the same as with Kiba and Koneko, you all refuse to use parts of your full potential because of trauma in your pasts that in two of your cases, you don't even know the full story about what happened. Your views of the world, the people from your pasts, and your overall power have all suffered as a result. Each of you, not just Rias, are only using the smallest fraction of your true potential for idiotic reasons that should have instead pushed you to become stronger, but you have severely limited yourselves instead, which could potentially cost Rias her chance at freedom from a certain chauvinistic pig."

All three of them started off glaring at him for his words while the others stood off to the side slack-jawed, but by the end of his rant they all were wincing harshly when the full measure of his words hit home and had the maximum effect that he was hoping for. Rias was busy sighing, because she knew that had needed to be said for a long time, but she was fearful that telling them the truth would lose her their friendship, which she coveted above all else. Sona was busy mentally applauding the old Counter Guardian, while outwardly giving a look that was half-way between a smirk and sympathy to her long-time friend and rival. The parents were busy wondering how long it would take for that burn to cool off.

Rias looked at him, "If I didn't know you were right, I would be busy throwing as many balls of destruction at you as I could conjure up for degrading my family that way."

EMIYA simply shrugged as he waved the dagger through the air, "I simply said what needed to be said. It is better to nip a problem in the bud and get things out in the open before they cause even more problems. I will actually have even more words for each one of you today, because sometimes you have to break something before you can build it up stronger, and if you really want to get stronger, know that what I will be helping you out with today is the baby-steps of training that I want to do. As the old American saying goes, no pain, no gain."

Rias and her entire Peerage nodded, with many of them gulping slightly, and Sona asked, much to the chagrin of her gathered pieces, "Can we also get this training?"

EMIYA nodded, "Yes, though your Peerage doesn't have quite as many problems as Rias' in either the power or mentality department. Now, Rias, are you ready?"

The red-headed heiress nodded, "Ready as I will ever be."

EMIYA motioned for everyone to back up very far, "It doesn't matter if I am close to her when it happens, but the likelihood of any of you surviving from this close after I undo the seal is very slim."

They all quickly backed off a good distance away, with the parents next to their respective children, and EMIYA stood next to Rias and said something that resonated with Issei because of their connection;

"I am the bone of my sword.

"Magic's principles, divine providence, the principles of the world... All creation... I will send back everything to their origins.

"RULE BREAKER!"

With the final line of what he said, he brought the dagger to Rias' chest and stabbed it in, and in the next instant a wall of crimson and black energy erupted from the young girl and engulfed EMIYA. It ate away at the ground and almost reached the families before Rias managed to get her power back under control, causing what was in the air around her to detonate in a spectacular fashion, shattering the school windows and causing the ground to shake violently. The winds, shaking, and heat from the explosion almost caused the groups there to fly into the air, but they only ended up falling to the ground instead.

The smoke from the explosion gradually cleared to show Rias, and her real appearance was in many of the parents and Issei's opinion far better than it was before. Her crimson hair had darkened a few shades so that it wasn't quite so bright and noticeable. Her once bountiful bust was no longer inhumanly large and was, instead, now considerably smaller, but that, combined with her slightly younger looking face and smaller hips, drew Issei's attention in a way that her appearance never had before. She noticed the look she was getting from Issei in particular and squeaked slightly in embarrassment. They all looked around for any sight of EMIYA and noticed him buried in the wall of the school, a little singed around the edges, but otherwise he was perfectly fine.

He slowly peeled away from the wall and coughed with a little blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth, "Remind me to not do anything like that again anytime soon." A few of them ran over and prepared to help him stand up straight, but they were amazed when he shook off the effects and stumbled slightly before walking towards them again, "It is a good thing I have such fast reflexes, otherwise my hastily projected Rho Aias wouldn't have done any good and I would currently be back inside the Sacred Gear."

Sona's eyes widened, "Do you mean…?"

He nodded as he worked the kinks out of his neck, "Why do you think that I said the form of Projection I use was high-level? It wasn't just because my projections had form and ability, it was also because the most useful projections I make are the armaments of legends. The dagger I used was Rule Breaker, the dagger of my world's version of Medea of Colchis. The two swords that are on the back of the physical manifestation of my Sacred Gear, which Issei still needs to learn how to do, are Kanshou and Bakuya, the swords made by Go Jiang."

Rias' eyebrow rose as everyone focused on him, "I thought you were the physical manifestation of the Sacred Gear."

EMIYA shook his head, "No, the power of the Sacred Gear is that it allows the wielder to use the five spells I knew in life to their ultimate limit, gives them a small but permanent boost in physical stats, and allows them to equip the power of any two weapons or artifacts within my arsenal to the users own body."

Saji's eyebrow twitched cause he felt very cheated considering his Sacred Gear was only a Gecko with an unbreakable tongue, "I CALL BULL-CRAP!"


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

EMIYA smirked as Sona furiously tried to shut Saji up, "There is also the fact that my Sacred Gear has technically three ultimate states of activation, one of which is very hazardous for the user's welfare if that user is not me."

Issei, in curiosity asked, "What are the five spells and three states of activation?"

The others quickly looked at him to see what the answer was, and he didn't disappoint, "Structural Analysis is the spell that allows you to see the composition, dimensions, abilities, and history of an object. Projection is the ability to make what amounts to a hard-light hologram out of magical energy, in other words a solid illusion. Reinforcement is the ability to strengthen any of the first three aspects you gain from Structural Analysis of what you are applying it to by filling gaps in its structure with magical energy. Alteration is the ability to change any aspect of the same first three things you get from Structural Analysis. Combination is the ability to fuse anything together with anything else in all of those three aspects that are again gained through Structural Analysis. All five were fused together into one over-arching school of thaumaturgy I made myself called Tracing. Which I developed through using all those spells the wrong way for so many years that something went right and I became able to Trace legendary weapons just by looking at them.

"The three states of activation are the Reality Marble, Scale Mail, and Juggernaut Drive states. Two of those should be recognizable to those who know about the Red and White Dragon Emperors. The Scale Mail allows the wielder to be covered in silver dragon-like armor and equip the abilities of forty-eight weapons or artifacts to the user's body, and the Juggernaut Drive turns the wielder into a large silver dragon, and the abilities of every artifact I, and all the alternate versions of me, have ever seen are equipped to the user's body. With the Juggernaut Drive there is also the matter of anyone who is not me either going insane by using it or popping out of existence for the same reason. The Reality Marble is my soul…"

Motohama held up a hand as the others were barely wrapping their brains around the other stuff that he said, "Did you just say your soul?"

EMIYA nodded, "Yes, my soul is a world all to itself called Unlimited Blade Works that possesses the ability to copy the information of and reproduce any weapon or magical artifact that I have seen. The third state of activation is the ability to impose it on the world around me. The other three are essentially channeling portions of its power through the body of the user. Now, Yuuto Kiba, or if we go by your real name, Isaiah, you will be the first person I will test."

Kiba's eyes widened, "How do you…? Why me?"

EMIYA smirked unpleasantly, "So I can drill something through your thick skull, and our abilities are similar in function, so I can teach you and Issei more than the rest of them. Now, summon your strongest sword, and let us see how it measures up. Trace on."

Everyone there watched with wide eyes as he summoned a beautiful pair of black and white Chinese Dao. The devils could feel that the blades were somehow dangerous to them despite not being holy swords. Kiba summoned up a large blade that was larger than usual and possessed the trait of energy amplification, absorption, and redirection for the purpose of strengthening the blade. When EMIYA quirked a brow, accompanied by his characteristic smirk, at the blade, Kiba blasted forwards with all the speed he could muster for the biggest non-lethal hole in EMIYA's defense, the white sword shifted out of position so Kiba would have a clear shot at the man's shoulder. He forgot that he was not dealing with an ordinary man.

EMIYA smirked as shook his head, batted the incoming sword away with his black blade and spun the white one to aim for Kiba's neck. Kiba managed to let go of his original sword and summoned a European looking sword that boosted the wielders flexibility enough that he got out of the way of the incoming blade, only to have his second sword shattered by the black blade in his opponent's right hand.

EMIYA snarled slightly and said the same thing as he shattered a newly summoned blade with either Kanshou and Bakuya, "Weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak." He lashed out with a kick to the stomach that caught Kiba off-guard and sent him skidding through the dirt, "Your blades are weak, you are not using your full strength. You were born with two Sacred Gears, use them and your natural power together boy. Do not concentrate on your loss, do not follow a path of misguided revenge. Live your life for the sake of your Master, who cares about you. Use the power given to you Isaiah, and stop concentrating on the past, or you will be consumed," he punctuated his next words by summoning a copy all twenty swords Kiba had made in the air around him and flinging them into the ground around the downed boy, "like I was!"

Kiba looked next to him, and saw his reflection in the copy of the first blade he made, and when EMIYA's words registered in his mind, something broke, and he felt that same all-consuming rage that he felt at Excalibur and Valper being directed towards this man in front of him, he formed a sword and stabbed it into the ground, thinking of all the different attributes he could remember in a single instant, "Sword Birth!"

Blades erupted from the ground and raced their way towards EMIYA, who had dismissed his dual-blades. The instant that they reached him, they shattered as he swung a sword that had not yet been seen in this world. A blade that was a combination of two supposed opposite energies, holy and demonic. A sword that held no attribute other than its own strange nature, yet Kiba felt a resonance with that blade from deep in his soul, something about the blade was calling out to him.

EMIYA shook his head, '"The Sword of the Betrayer' is B Rank Noble Phantasm with a durability beyond what is normally held by B Rank Noble Phantasms. It is also the primary sword of Heroic Spirit Yuuto Kiba, with those that have attributes being slightly higher in rank. This boy is what you can achieve if you stop your little pity party and grow up. In fact, you can surpass it with my help, you are, after all, not the only one who suffers from something called survivor's guilt. I built my whole life around my own survivor's guilt, and in the end, it broke me. It will do the same to you if you don't let it go." EMIYA dismissed the weapon and shook his head as he turned his back on the stunned boy.

Everyone was stunned into silence at the display of violence with no pity or quarter given to the boy who was still struggling with past trauma, and EMIYA pointed at Tojo Koneko, "Your up."

Koneko's eyes widened when he was suddenly behind her, glowing green lines filled with magical power tracing their way over his exposed skin and clothes, "You're too slow."

The punch that followed rocketed her over the destroyed field and into a nearby tree that had partially survived Rias' blast of power. She managed to flip around and land on the trunk with her feet first. Her knees bended to absorb the shock, and then she launched off with a powerful thrust of her tiny legs that finished destroying the poor tree and sent a shower of splinters into the air. She raced back at EMIYA using as much of her natural power as she dared, and EMYIA actually smiled, but it turned into a smirk a half-second later when he used her charge against her, grabbing her arm as it passed where his head had been just moments before and Judo flipping her hard into the ground.

EMIYA traced a trio of Black Keys and flung them into her shadow from her place on the ground, and Koneko ended up stuck fast, "You won't be able to move unless you lose your full power. Your sister, who possesses the same powers as you, didn't go power hungry and abandon you after killing her master. She was being experimented on by her master and killed him to protect you from the same fate. Your sister loved you above all else, to the point where she was willing to be forever hunted and potentially killed by the rest of the underworld so you could be happy and safe, but you rejected her and thought that using your power would lead you to killing Rias. You are wrong and you need to remember that your power is not your sister's power. Grow up, Tojo Koneko."

A bolt of lightning traced in and almost struck him, but he leaned back at the last possible second and summoned his black bow and a crooked looking sword that he knocked, altered, and fired, while jumping and in mid-air, with pin-point accuracy to the left of the airborne and crackling Akeno. The sword drew her lightning to it and sped off into the distance where it exploded inside of a cloud, causing thunder and lightning to crackle and boom, and Akeno was drained dry of her demonic lightning.

EMIYA shook his head, "Why do you not use your power, oh warped one?"

She snarled, "What do you know?"

EMIYA shook his head again, "There is one thing that remains the same, no matter the timeline, and that is the fact that Baraqiel was in fact defending your home from three powerful Yokai that your family called upon to keep him busy while they went after your mother the day she was killed. The poor man almost died for his family, and instead of coming into his arms so that the both of them could be comforted, his daughter told him that she hated him and ran away to suffer all alone. She has become so used to personal suffering, that she has forgotten how to distinguish between suffering and pleasure. She has forgotten that fear, pain, and remorse are not erotic sensations. She has forsaken a heritage that would allow her to defeat the entirety of Riser's peerage singlehandedly. You know so little of the world through your warped view of it, Himejima Akeno, daughter of Baraqiel."

Akeno looked at him with wide eyes, filled with fear and regret of and for her past actions, the way she looked at him was so pitiful, "Do you think that my father could ever find it in him to forgive me, even though I have become part devil?"

EMIYA smiled at her, not unkindly this time, "Dark-kin, and are you not his daughter, Akeno? If he is any kind of father, that is enough."

The other parents there actually smiled a little and nodded their heads at this, but Kazuto's mother spoke up, "Do you really need to be so harsh with them?"

EMIYA nodded with a slight frown and waved his hand at the three contemplating members of Rias' Peerage that he had already systematically defeated and verbally dressed down, "Only with these three, and one other when Rias undoes the seal on his room. I can teach only a few of them something. Sometimes things need to be broken before they can be rebuilt, and as far as teaching goes, there is little that I can teach to Koneko and Matsuda, because they are naturally martial artists and teaching them my brand of magic would be counterintuitive instead of complementary, though there is a way I may be able to help Matsuda get stronger."

Matsuda and his parents perked up on hearing that, and the boy asked, "How so?"

EMIYA nodded, "You actually have six different variations of od, what you would refer to as ki, in your body, and that is actually a far more flexible and rewarding power-source then my brand of magic called magecraft."

Matsuda's father asked, "How are there six different variations?"

EMIYA smirked, "There are actually more than that, but he only possesses six. The first three are a result of some mixed blood flowing through his veins. Of course, there is the normal human ki, and from his yokai and miko heritage, he has yoki and miko-spirit-energy. The yokai and miko heritage is from his mother, and she is a descendant of the great half-demon Inuyasha and his wife Higurashi Kagome."

Everyone looked surprised at that little tidbit of information, and Rias realized that she had essentially struck what amounted to a gold-mine of combat potential amongst her peerage members, but one thing stuck out to her, "What about the other three?"

EMIYA winced slightly, "They are something that is not natively used in this universe, but they exist all the same, and are technically the same thing named Reiryoku. The normal human variant is technically the dead's variant of living ki and its inverse hollow power, which is the dead's variant of yoki, and its live human mutation Quincy power. He has these because he was dead and you revived him, Rias."

Matsuda scratched his head, "What good are they?"

EMIYA sighed as he motioned Issei over, "Reiryoku in particular is very dangerous unless it is carefully contained and controlled. With it, if your soul power, if you will, greatly exceeds that of anyone around you, you run the risk of literally crushing their soul into ity-bity little pieces and killing them accidentally. As yours is right now, I am the only one who can feel it because I am a Spiritual Entity, and it is large, but not so large that it could harm others, or that they would even feel it. However, if you started to draw on it with no training or regulator then your ability to control it could slip completely, and it could destroy those around you. There is also the fact that, because you are technically part Hollow and part Yokai, you run the risk of losing complete control and being like the Strays that Rias and Sona have to deal with that got power hungry and lost control of themselves, and they started to eat human flesh and souls to fill a void, or 'hollow' within them when they, after a fashion, lost their heart. That is why it is so dangerous to resurrect the dead. Technically the others who have been resurrected possess it as well, but they are of no real danger like this one is."

Issei created the sword that EMIYA had sent him the blueprint for, and he held it up, "What exactly is this thing, and why does it have something to do with death gods?"

EMIYA smirked as he took the blade from Issei, "This is a Zanpakuto, the weapon of a Shinigami, but this is one with no name. They are used to control and regulate the Reiryoku of their wielders, who are called Shinigami, but they are actually the souls of the dead who possess an unusually high amount of Reiryoku." The blade started glowing blue, yet the others could feel no magical power coming from it, and EMIYA pointed it at Matsuda's stomach, "I have altered this so that you will be able to learn to control and wield all your power, not just your dead power, but to bind it to you, I will need to stab it through a spot just above your stomach. You will need to decide whether that is something you want or not."

Matsuda didn't even think for a moment, "If it can keep me from killing and eating my friends, then yes I will do it."

EMIYA nodded and stabbed the glowing blue sword through the boy and they watched as a transformation took place. A bright flash of non-magical light and the boy was standing there in a strange black and white outfit that Rias recognized as a Shihakushō, and the reason for why all the things EMIYA had talked about sounded so familiar, and she only had to say one word, "Bleach."

EMIYA took one look at the sword and, using his tracing abilities, saw that it was named Subarashī Mikkā, or Great Mimicker. The sword's spirit was in the form of a colossal white canine with various markings on its face, that was larger than twenty-seven buses stacked into a rectangular, three high by three wide by three long cube and it had the ability to perfectly copy the forms, powers, and techniques of other Zanpakuto's Shikai and Bankai, which meant that he had gotten extremely lucky that this was a world where Bleach existed as an anime. EMIYA nodded, half to himself and half to Rias, "Then it would be a good idea for him to watch and read the series to understand the full scope of his abilities, and as a training aid for him."

EMIYA internally winced as he also saw that, unlike normal Shinigami, Matsuda's appearance would change in both his Shikai and Bankai forms, and he had a third form, also unlike other Shinigami. In his Shikai form he would essentially become a throw-back to his ancestor Inuyasha, just with black and white clothing instead of red and white. In his Bankai form he would essentially be somewhat of a cross between a human and a dog, kind of like the usual depictions of werewolves with white fur. In his third form, he would fully transform into a giant dog demon similar in stature to his Zanpakuto spirit, and he would be able to manifest copy-cat Zanpakuto around him in a similar manner to EMIYA's tracing abilities. In all his forms he would have a hole in the center of his chest and a canine themed bone mask over his face with crimson slash marks under his almost completely red and glowing eyes, and a black upturned crescent moon in the middle of his forehead.

After the little internal reprimand for giving a teenager access to power like that, EMYIA turned around and completed the training with the others. It went about how one would expect, especially when he got to Issei, whose mind had been warped under his influence to a state fairly similar to his idiotic younger self. Needless to say, they were plenty of bruises to go around after the "training session."


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Rias and Sona, and their entire Peerages were in the Occult Research club room after their "training" with EMIYA. The Parents of Rias' new peerage members had gone home after their children had all been tested by the white-haired man, that Saji was calling a sadistic psychopath in his mind. The kids were all sprawled out over everything, not wanting to perform their various duties tonight because of soreness. Sakura was also the only one with any energy left, because EMIYA wasn't going to do any training with a little girl. Kazuto also had some energy left, but he was a training nut, so Asuna said that he didn't count.

Something suddenly occurred to Rias and she looked at the couch where Issei was laying with his little sister sitting on top of him, she asked, "EMIYA, how do you know about Gasper?"

They heard a snort come from the claw-like gauntlet that Issei had been taught how to summon and still had out, **"I have called home a dimension where you all already exist, and multiple alternate versions of me have become, at the very least, acquainted with you all in some way or other. Gasper's power is particularly interesting to me, because after becoming a Sacred Gear and gaining the knowledge and power of Primus, who you know, quite mistakenly, as God, I saw the true nature of all Sacred Gears and how they are supposed to be used."**

Everyone rapidly sat up, forgetting their exhaustion, and Sona asked, "Do you mean that…?"

They could all hear the smirk in his voice, **"Yes, Rias technically has the greatest enemy of your kind as her subordinate, but that is getting off topic."**

Everyone's eyes were twitching as he casually dismissed something like that, and Rias asked, "Can Issei use his power?"

EMIYA was mentally shaking his head as he said, **"Without killing himself and you all, and restarting the Great War, not his full power. That power is, at the moment, so far beyond the limits of what the boy can accomplish it isn't even funny; trying to handle that much power at once, even though his influence is a healing influence, is suicide; back to the topic of Gasper and his Sacred Gear, Forbidden Balor View. That was actually an experiment of Primus' where he used a sample of power he had gotten from a fight he had with Balor and successfully manipulated it using a rather well known sheath to give it the effects that the sheath had, in fact the most commonly known usage of that Sacred Gear in particular is so far from the way it was intended to be used. It is, quite frankly, ludicrous how far off base people are, they even have the thing misnamed. Tell me Rias, from your memory what is it classed as and what are its effects."**

Rias only had to think for a second and said, "It is a Time-Space Sacred Gear that allows the wielder to stop the time of whatever they look at, but I get the feeling from what you said that isn't the way it is supposed to be used in the slightest."

**"If it was actually based on Balor's power, why are its effects not related to wide scale fiery destruction?"**

Sona and Kiba got it at the same time, but she was quicker to say it, "Because of the sheath you mentioned."

**"How very astute of you. Now, can any of you guess the name of that sheath?"**

Kiba was the first to guess, because of his history with the blades called Excalibur, and the description of Sheath of Excalibur's power, "Avalon."

The others eyes widened, because even in Japan the legends of King Arthur were well known, **"Yes. The true name of the Sacred Gear is supposed to be Eyes of Avalon, and its effects are supposed to be applied to the wielder and his allies, not his enemies. It temporarily removes whatever is under its effects from both the normal time stream and local reality into a small but indestructible bounded field, which is a fully visible and mobile pocket dimension, that the wielder can use to speed up or slow down their own and their allies' personal time while being invulnerable to attacks from the outside. It also allows the wielder to revert their bodies to an uninjured state through time reversal. The use of it to bind ones enemies and completely stop time within its area of influence is extremely counter-productive, to the point of it being ridiculous that it is used that way. It takes at least thirty times more power to completely stop time and to apply that particular power at a distance to someone else than it does to use it on yourself and merely manipulate how your personal time flows. If it truly did just stop time within the wielders field of vision, as people assume it does, then anyone it is used on Earth should technically become what is colloquially known as street pizza from crashing into the nearest solid object at approximately one thousand mile per hour after its effects have vanished. The user would also incur the 'wrath' of the Universe in trying to break its laws and would instantly die. It is, in fact, probably the most powerful Sacred Gear in existence, aside from mine, but because of misuse it is not classified as such."**

Everyone there was still trying to scrape their jaws off the floor a moment later when Rias made a statement that caused poor EMIYA to mentally face-palm, "I thought that it just had something to do with the magic of it."

They actually heard the answering smack to the Counter Guardian's face, **"Magic is the manipulation of the Natural Laws of the Universe through the use of quantum energy fields. It is, in fact, one hundred percent scientific, and not mystical, in origin and use. As such, when the 'magical' phenomenon are occurring there are laws of the Universe that they have to either work with or work around to accomplish their goals. Laws of the Universe cannot be broken no matter how much power you possess. Your power in particular actually is just the ability to weaken and destroy the bonds that atoms and other particles have with each other at their most basic level. Magic resistance and magic slash life energy are just the combination and quantum fusion and replication of the electro-magnetic energy generated by your bodies, the radiation levels within your bodies caused by the different forms of radiation breakdown, and the strength of the strong and weak nuclear forces holding all the individual atoms of your bodies together. This and any outside energy that you take in is, generally, channeled through entry and exit points on your quantum 'soul' interconnected by pathways that can handle only certain amounts of the quantum energy, which are called Magic Circuits in my original universe. Name any magical or supernatural power that you can think of and there is a technological equivalent in any universe where humanity exists."**

Sona, who had the best grasp on subjects like physics and chemistry, realized how that explanation made sense, except in one area, "But then why does our race need to be connected to a particular sin to exist?"

EMIYA mentally shook his head, **"You don't. It is due to the belief that you are actually devils that this idiocy came about. Your kind are descended from humans, and whether they admit it or not, humans have a natural disposition towards doing evil. Using your race as a way to validate your wrongdoing, and then saying that you do wrong things because you are of a particular race, is completely ludicrous and the result of circular reasoning, but the second part of the statement is completely true. All things that are descended from man will always do evil things and seek a way to validate their wrongdoing. There is no validation for evil that comes from a source other than that evil itself, and I do believe that you know what self-validation is called and where it comes from."**

Rias and everyone else winced as they all came to roughly the same conclusion, and she answered, "Empty pride that uses itself as its own basis, and it comes from circular reasoning, just like you said." She then asked the question that had been bugging her from the start of EMIYA telling them all these things, "Why are you telling us all of this?"

EMIYA sighed, **"Since becoming a Sacred Gear there are many things that have been made clear to me, because I have collected the wisdom and knowledge of all my, and any of the souls trapped within me, sometimes millions of years old alternate selves across the multiverse. This universe in particular is so full of lies and misunderstanding that it is ridiculous how anyone continues to believe them, yet believe them they do. I am telling you these things so that you will no longer believe lies, but that you will believe the truth instead. I won't always tell you all everything, because there are some things that you are just not yet ready to handle, but what I think you can handle, I will tell you when I think it is time. Now, I do believe that you are about to get an opportunity of your own to teach your new friends some things."**

When he went silent, Issei was about to ask what he meant, when Rias and Sona's phones dinged with a message that the Stray known as Viser was in the area, and they needed to eliminate her.

Rias looked tiredly at Sona, "Do you want to take her, or should I?"

Sona sighed and looked at their gathered peerages, "How about we work together on this one, considering how tired out everyone is?"

Rias nodded as she forced herself to stand up, "Alright everyone, let's go, we have a Stray Devil to kill."

Issei and Saji tilted their heads to the side, with the latter asking, "I thought that we aren't actually devils, after what that sadist was saying."

Sona winced as she answered her pawn, "Apparently we aren't, but if there are any of our race that actually earn the title of devil then it is usually them. Now, let's get going so that we can teach all you newbies about our powers."

There was a chorus of groans and moans that accompanied their rise from "death." It continued slightly all the way to the building where Viser had set up camp. When they were within a few hundred feet of the place, Issei smelt the overpowering stench of death, blood, and darkness. He stopped and wobbled on his feet for a few seconds with Sakura holding tightly onto his hand.

She looked at Issei, bringing everyone's attention to him, "Are you alright, Big Brother?"

Issei managed to smile kindly at her while shaking his head, "Yes Sakura, I am fine. Rias, can we leave someone here with Sakura?"

Everyone raised their eyebrow to ask why, and Rias asked, "Why would you want that, Issei?"

The boy winced, "Ever since I can remember, I have always been able to smell magic and other things better than anyone, and I just smelled blood and death. That isn't something I want my little sister seeing just yet."

Sakura yanked on his hand with a pout, "I am not that little."

Rias nodded with slightly widened eyes, "Of course, I didn't even think about that. Usually, our kind is introduced to this sort of thing at a very young age, but a very young and formerly human child wouldn't be ready for this. I may like to say that my Peerage is my family, but I forget that we weren't brought up the same way. Sona, would you be willing to…?"

Sona shook her head at her own friend's absentmindedness, "I may as well. Tsubaki, you have been with me long enough that I doubt you will be needed for the demonstration against Viser. Please watch over Issei's little sister."

Tsubaki nodded her head in a partial bow, "Of course President."

Sakura spoke up with a cute pout on her face, "I don't need to be watched over like some baby."

Issei gently turned her towards himself and knelt so he was looking her in the eye, "I know you aren't a baby, Sakura, but there are some things that I just don't think you need to see yet."

Sakura glared at her big brother, "But Mr. Ddraig showed me all his battles and stuff, and I doubt that this will be any worse than those."

All of them had been filled in on exactly who was inside the Boosted Gear, so all of them raised an eyebrow at that, and EMIYA was mentally face-palming from inside Issei, **"He is awake, is he?"**

A deep and gravelly voice answered from a glowing green spot on the back of Sakura's left hand, **"Indeed, I told the girl not spill the secret that I was awake, but I guess you can't count on little children to keep secrets."**

Sakura growled as she moved her hand to in front of her face, "I am not a little child, you big meanie."

Ddraig chuckled, **"Sure you aren't… hatchling."**

The girl growled at her hand, and Rias bizarrely wondered if she was going to try and bite it. Especially considering her eyes were glowing green and reptilian with her canines slightly pronounced. They all heard Ddraig continue chuckling at her.

EMIYA was about ready to tear his non-existent hair out, **"You mean to tell me that you were awake this whole dang time, and you did NOTHING to keep your master from dying!?"**

Ddraig was silent for a moment, **"…sigh… It was your powerful presence and the resonance I felt with the me inside you that awoke me, but at the time I was kind of asleep and the girl hasn't actually called forth my physical form yet, or even learned how."**

Rias and Sona were busy face-palming while everyone else stood there slack-jawed, some of them with their left eye twitching, and Issei said, with perfect calmness, "If you weren't technically a part of my sister I would be finding any dragon slaying sword I could and make your life as miserable as I could."

Ddraig snorted, **"From what I have discussed with the other me, I could have done worse and ended up with you for a host. My life would have definitely been interesting, but I doubt that I would have wanted to go through with you what most other versions of me go through, namely you being a giant pervert."**

Issei sputtered indignantly, "I am no pervert, you useless reptile."

Sakura quickly spoke up happily, "Does this mean I can watch you kill that weird lady that I smell?"

EMIYA mentally stumbled and then connected the dots in his brain, from the green eyes, keen sense of smell that rivals his own, and the long since awake Ddraig, **"She is more adapted to that power then almost all the other alternate versions of Issei are after more years of living with it inside him then she has been alive. Her affinity to it must be astounding. If she doesn't achieve Balance Breaker and control of Juggernaut Drive by a month from now, I will eat Durandal."**

He didn't realize that he was still communicating out loud for all to hear, and Rias quickly shook her head and, to get everyone to scrape their jaws off the ground, said, "Let's just get going to Viser so she doesn't try to escape on us."

They nodded and divided up into the two separate peerages, with the kings and newbies at the back, and the experienced members at the front. They walked basically in silence until they filed into the house, which was full of bones, rotting flesh, and strips of clothing stained brown by the dried blood. It was a decidedly ghastly scene, made especially more so when the naked torso of a long white haired woman appeared near the second story of the building, though the features seemed off for a reason that Issei just couldn't seem to place.

Issei held his nose as he said, "She smells disgusting."

Matsuda muttered beside him, "I can see the spiritual hole in her chest, right between her gigantic breasts."

Motohama winced as he pushed up his glasses, "And they are imbued with magic that makes them full of milk and then turns that to high speed acid upon firing."

The three friends all let a collective shiver go up their spines as they each saw and smelt their own disgusting aspect of the Stray Devil in front of them. Viser, who luckily didn't hear them, rasped out, ""I smell something bad, but I also smell something delicious. I wonder if it's sweet, or if it's bitter?"

Rias called out to her, "Stray Devil Viser, Murderous Psychopath, and killer of your master. You have broken the laws of the Underworld and your penalty is death. Do you have any last words before we take you down?"

The strangely beautiful creature fully revealed her lower body, causing all the newbies eyes to almost literally pop out of their skulls. It was a grotesque thing that wouldn't have looked out of place in a horror movie. The strangely humanoid front legs with giant pink claws coming out of an almost horse-like body that had a giant mouth situated in the chest and an almost normal looking rear, if you discount the snake tail, was almost causing four of the new boys, which didn't include Kirito for some reason, to puke. Her eyes turned completely black, and her teeth and ears elongated.

The creature's voice distorted the same as her visage as she started fondling her two rather large and dangerous canons, "You are such a 'little' girl, Gremory! I will rip your body and color it in red just like your hair!"

At this pronouncement Sona didn't even wait for the creature to activate the magic of her bosom, and called to her two bishops, "Momo, Reya!"

The two nodded and held out their hands, magic circles appearing in front of them, "Yes President."

A barrier appeared and blocked the white acid from hitting anyone, with Rias taking on a lecturing tone for the newbies, "Those two are bishops, meaning that their magic power is boosted instead of their physical attributes."

Kiba and Meguri disappeared and reappeared on either side of Viser, cutting off her arms with a couple of katana's, with Kiba's obviously being a product of his Sacred Gear. Rias continued her narrative tone for the dumbfounded newbies, "Those two are knights, meaning that their enhanced speed is their greatest attribute."

Koneko, with her tail and ears finally on full display, ran in with Tsubasa right on her heels. She let loose with a punch to the creature's body mouth that shattered all its teeth and lifted it off the ground, though she was still holding back on her power somewhat. Tsubasa jumped above her and got a spear, which the creature had been holding onto using its snake tail, jabbed towards her face. She didn't try to dodge and allowed the spear to break on her forehead, grabbing onto it and using it to pull herself at the creature with a good-ole-fashioned mule kick to the chest that slammed it back towards the earth.

Rias smiled at all their gob-smacked expressions, "They are Rooks, meaning that they have enhanced strength and durability."

Tsubaki appeared and with all her queen enhance strength lopped off the snake tail with her Naginata. Sona used her power of water to bind the four "legs" of the creature to the ground, and Akeno flew up with both her bat-like and bird-like wings on full display coming out of the back of her Miko outfit. "Holy" and "Demonic" lightning gathered in between her hands in an almost uncontrollable storm as she unleashed it on the creature with a slight smile. Rias mentally noted that it was significantly different from what she was used to seeing from her friend, though there were definitely still quite noticeable traces of dark pleasure in her friends dancing violet eyes.

Rias point at Tsubaki and Akeno, "Those two are queens, meaning that they have all the others' attributes at the same time, and it is quite obvious which ones they use most often." Rias turned and looked directly into the badly burnt and wounded monstrosity, and repeated her earlier words almost cheerfully, "Any last words, Stray Devil Viser."

The thing looked wearily and blurrily towards the source of the voice, "Kill me, Gremory."

Rias nodded as she said, "Checkmate."

Her power gathered in front of her forward-facing hands, but she forgot EMIYA's earlier advice and tried to use her Gremory Seal to channel her power of destruction. The power quickly swirled out of control, destroying the manifested seal and shooting forwards in an uncontrolled fashion. It annihilated everything in its path, destroying the back half of the house and about three hundred feet of forest and garden behind the small mansion. Those on the different Peerages were barely able to get out of the way, some suffering fringe damage to their clothing and Sona ending up with a slight "destruction burn" on the back of her left hand. The bespectacled girl glared at her best friend/rival with a look that could make steel melt.

Rias winced, "Sorry, Sona. I am still not used to this power."

Issei quickly spoke up for him and all the other newbies, "What are we?"

Rias somehow managed to look at them quite cheerfully, with Sona and Akeno shaking their heads in exasperation with her antics, "You are all pawns."

The three friends, despite not being perverts in this dimension, were still teenage boys, and they all had one thought go through their minds, _"Chicks don't dig pawns."_


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Rias leaned back in her chair, waiting for the new members of her peerage to make their way to the Occult Research Club Room after school. She held a miniature ball of destruction in her right hand. She was attempting to learn to regulate her power so she could get used to using it. It was working, but she knew she had a long way to go before she could do anything with it even semi-efficiently.

It was amazing to her that the little swirling red and black ball in her hand was capable of destroying the entire building she was seated in. She quickly drew it back into herself and got up to look out the window. She saw, quite a ways away, a young girl from Koneko's class, who was a child genius that had skipped two or three grades, being picked up and hugged by her father. The touching scene brought back a memory of her child-hood, before the Riser business had come about.

She had finished her schooling with her tutors and had found her father and asked him to play hide-and-seek with her again. Her father never seemed to tire of indulging her as a little girl, and she figured that was why he had set up an arranged marriage between her and Riser. She actually had liked the hot-head once, but she had watched as he quickly degenerated into what he was now after getting his Evil Pieces and his all-female peerage. She knew her father had set up the marriage out of love for his daughter, and he wanted to see her succeed. At the time, Riser was a nice young man who was believed to hold the ability to one day become either a super-devil or at the very least a mid-tier ultimate class. She mused that his pride had probably gone to his head and driven him a little crazy. She mentally amended herself and figured that the American saying of "nutty as a fruitcake" was applicable to anyone who constantly spoke about themselves in the third person.

A conversation she had had with EMIYA last night after Issei had fallen asleep on the couch in the clubroom after a job also came to mind.

-Flashback Start-

**"Rias."**

Rias looked up from her spot behind her desk, "Yes."

**"Could I speak with you in private for a moment?"**

There was only one other person in the classroom cause the others were either out on jobs or with their families, and that one person was Akeno. Rias regarded the small light on the back of Issei's right hand with a raised eyebrow, "Can Akeno not hear what you have to say?"

**"I suppose she can if she really wants to, though it has nothing to do with her."**

Akeno raised an eyebrow, "What does it have to do with then?"

A sigh answered them, **"The Gremor Family crest, and it's secret that only I and it's maker know about."**

Rias looked a little stunned, "Then why are you telling me?"

**"It is the reason why I personally dislike the idea of your marriage to Riser, and it is the reason why your brother is so strong and your power was locked away."**

Both females made a small "Oh?" noise at his admission, and Rias asked, "And how would you have come by this secret?"

EMIYA sighed again, **"After becoming a Sacred Gear I found the Magic Circles of all the Seventy Two demon families and fused them with their own individual King Piece within me, making me able to use their powers, though not all of them at one time mind you. The only two exceptions to that would be my Juggernaut Drive where I use the powers and abilities of every weapon and artifact in my arsenal at once, and the Goetia King Piece that is the fusion of them together. But with my tracing abilities I can see every power and ability of what I trace, as well as its history, and the Gremory Seal is the only one that has an unintentional curse on it that was placed there by the original Demon Duke Gremory. He was the original precursor to those who wished to create what you now call super-devils, one of those experimenters was Kuroka's former master, which was how the dual bishop became so powerful. He was a lot more patient then the rest of them though. He imbedded a special magic into his seal that made it so that anyone who possessed it, their children's potential would be greater than their predecessor. He was among the weakest of the original Seventy Two, so the fact that he has two descendants who possess potential that far outstrips the original four Great Satans combined should speak for the success of his experiment."**

Akeno raised an eyebrow as Rias struggled to figure out where he was going with this, the first asking, "What is your point?"

Rias also asking immediately after that, "How am I stronger than the original four?"

EMIYA sighed for what felt to him the umpteenth time in this timeline, **"I will answer the second question first, because it is the simpler of the two. You are not stronger than the original four. Your potential to be stronger is there, but there is a massive difference between potential power and actualized power. It is the same as the difference between yours and your brother's power levels at this moment. To put it bluntly, if you got in a fight against even your ancestor Demon Duke Gremory at your current level, he would wipe the floor with you and your entire peerage, unless Kirito used his ultimate Noble Phantasm, but that is another matter entirely. Back to your brother, he is the incarnation of darkness and destruction, as are you, but you had a seal placed on your power before you were born, he did not. I believe I do not need to go over the circumstances surrounding his birth with you again. The Gremory Seal not only increases the power of each generation, it also manipulates their element and origin towards the most destructive end possible through combining or replacing the element and origin the successive generation depending on their parentage. **

**"For example, your mother's element is destruction and your father's is only darkness. The seal manipulated it so that you and your brother became the incarnation of both. Now what is the one element that is more destructive than any other?"**

Understanding of where he was going with this dawned in Rias' mind, "Fire."

EMIYA wished they could see his mental nodding, **"Indeed. So any child that you would have had with Riser would have been the incarnation of the Dark Flames of Destruction. That particular title also refers to the Flames of Gehenna. Combine that with the potential power increasing factor of the Gremory Seal and you would have ended up with the most powerful devil to ever exist, and I am calling the kid a devil because he would have been worthy of the title as he grew. In fact, especially in your weakened state, giving birth to the child would have killed you instantly. Driving Riser very firmly into the depths of insanity, causing him to raise the boy to be a monster, which the kid would embrace with open arms, and he would eventually proceed to laugh while watching as everything, and I do mean everything, around him was destroyed by his dark power. Including his own body."**

Rias looked horrified, but then she grasped at something he hadn't mentioned, "Why didn't something similar happen with Millicas, and what was that about Riser and insanity?"

EMIYA would have raised an eyebrow in amusement, if he could have, he was seriously starting to regret his decision in becoming Issei's Sacred Gear, **"When your brother became Lucifer, long before even you were born, he abandoned the use of the Gremory Crest and destroyed it from within himself, so no power enhancement for your nephew. The part about Riser is a little more complicated. He actually does love you, but his arrogance and power have blinded him to that love. Having a peerage of all female members was in fact his attempt to replace you in his life until he could be married to you. He unfortunately came to enjoy the power he held over them a little too much, and you know the way he acts now, which is a direct correlation to the saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In fact, being long lived and a magical powerhouse is ninety-nine percent of the time the leading cause of insanity in magically empowered intelligent beings."**

It was after this point that EMIYA had stopped talking, having given the two much to think about."

-Flashback End-

She was brought out of her reminiscing by Issei shaking her slightly and asking, "Are you okay, President."

Rias nodded with a smile, "Yes, Issei, I am fine."

Issei gave her a slightly suspicious look, then decided that she was, "I was wondering what your policy is on nuns?"

Rias saw the raised eyebrows on some of the occupants of the now full room, and the brief flash of hate on Kiba's face before he could stifle it, and she vehemently said, "You should never be having any contact with nuns, they are the enemies of our kind. Why would even ask that?"

Issei's index fingers poked together, "I kind of met a very cute one about my age on my way into school this morning."

Akeno snickered a little as she and the other girls in the room all came to the same conclusion, "Somebody has a cru-ush."

Issei's vehement denials and his red cheeks were at odds with each other, and Rias tuned them out to try and figure out what this new dilemma might mean for her and Sona's peerages, _"This does not bode well for us, especially considering the church on the outside of town is so old, broken down, and out of use. First the Fallen Angels randomly killing a few people, and now an unknown nun rolls around. If a turf war between representatives of the three factions starts here, we could be seeing the restart of the Great War here in Kuoh Town._

_"Or if we proved ourselves incapable of handling the situation then my brother and Sona's sister would drag us back to the underworld. If my parents thought there was a chance of war, they could also try to speed along the wedding at a pace I do not think I would care for. Maybe I could actually use Issei's little crush on the nun to figure out what they're here for. No easier way to do that than to tell him he can't see her at all. In this case his humanity is probably an advantage, because she won't be able to sense the powers of a devil. No easier way to get him to shadow her than to tell him that he can't see her again." _

The red-head winced slightly in the privacy of her own mind, _"This feels a little too manipulative for my taste, almost like what happened with the Fallen Angels when they attacked Issei. I wanted to help, but I couldn't because of stupid politics. So I gave Issei the flier in hopes that he would summon me when he needed help, that way I could blame it on the Fallen Angels for attacking one of my clients, instead he didn't summon me until after they were gone and he was on death's door. I really hope he doesn't get too mad when he finds out, especially with how powerful his Sacred Gear is."_

She felt another mind brush her own and heard EMIYA, **_"You do not need to worry, girl."_**

Rias looked at the back of Issei's wildly waving right hand, _"You mean he already knows."_

EMIYA chuckled sardonically, **_"No, but he is like I once was, a fool who keeps no record of wrongs and tries to see the good in every person, no matter how small it is. He will likely try to implore to the Fallen Angels' good sides to get them to let the girl go instead of going in sword's swinging like he should."_**

Rias blinked, _"What girl?"_

She could almost hear the smirk, **_"No spoilers for you, woman."_**

Rias started leaking a little of her power, causing the conversation in the room to halt as they sensed it start to build up, _"WOMAN! I'll show you, you little, disrespectful, uncouth…"_

Her thoughts quickly de-railed a she realized that everyone was staring at her and her rapidly deteriorating desk and chair that were covered in a black and red aura. She heard a slight snigger leaving her mind as Akeno asked, "Are you okay, President?"

Rias dismissed the aura and sat down with a sigh, "I am fine, Akeno."

Kiba snorted, "If you say so, Rias."

Rias glared and pouted at him slightly, "I do say so Kiba."

He held up his hands in surrender, with a true smile on his face. Issei could somehow tell that it was real and not like the ones he seemed to always have around the school, but he was quickly distracted from his thoughts. Everyone else was as well, because his younger decided to say something quite disturbing.

Sakura innocently pulled at her brother's shirt and asked, "Can I learn how to do that some day?"

EMIYA decided this was the point to chime in, **"Well, the aura of a dragon is naturally very destructive."**

Ddraig also commented, **"Indeed, the fact that you have the souls of several dragons inside you and do not go mad and destroy everything around you is impressive."**

EMIYA mentally smirked, **"And considering that there are at least five with power levels like you heavenly dragons, including you heavenly dragons, makes it even more astonishing, right?"**

Ddraig chuckled, **"Indeed, had I been outside this Sacred Gear, and them as well, I would have liked to challenge them."**

Everyone was flabbergasted at this point with the two talking arms, but what EMIYA said next stopped everyone cold in fear for the future, **"That actually could be arranged."**

Every member of Rias' Peerage, Sona, who had been listening outside the door from when she felt her friend's power spike, and Ddraig all shouted, "WHAT!?"

EMIYA mentally smirked, **"Did you think the Servant summoning ritual worked only for me? I actually modified the circle so that it works both as it normally would and as to bring out the soul of the person's choice from those residing within them into the material world in a servant body, and considering that they would be in the Beast Class, which is the only servant class that lets the servant use the full power of their Heroic Spirit counterpart, they would be able to fight at full power. The fact that the majority of the burden of their power would be the responsibility of the earth itself would also be a bonus."**

Rias asked for all of them, "Why would the earth be the thing supporting them, and do you really think it wise to let a bunch of dragons capable of annihilating gods roam free?"

EMIYA sighed, not realizing he would have to explain this bit, **"Dragons stand at the pinnacle of the supernatural races, being the most powerful form of Phantasmal Beast in existence and with the exceptions of Great Red and Ophis, from this universe anyways, all of them were spawned by the Earth itself as a countermeasure to man's existence. To make the Heavenly dragons, the Earth borrowed a little of Ophis' power to make them, but they are still an existence made and supported by the Earth. The fact that Primus usurped the power of the Heavenly Dragons and gave their powers to humans does not stop the fact that they were made by the earth. When they are summoned, the summoner is still their anchor/master in this world, but the summoner doesn't have to worry about them draining them till death. If the summoner dies then they would instantly perish and in the case of Ddraig, be implanted in a new host who would probably have no idea how to perform the ritual. As for the wisdom of letting dragons roam free, how is it wise to let someone with your power and potential roam free, Rias Gremory?"**

Ddraig sighed as well, **"So it would only be a temporary loosening of the chains that bind me."**

**"Indeed, especially because, in your case, the soul that grants her power would no longer be present, so however long you would remain. That would be the same amount of time her Sacred Gear would be inoperable and she would be extremely vulnerable to being killed, even if there wouldn't be a lot of drain on her magic stores."**

Kirito and Asuna took one look at each other and decided to retreat from the room so they could retain their sanity. The others quickly followed suit, letting Sona in and leaving the room entirely to go do jobs or go home. Rias just sat in her partially ruined chair with her elbows on her deteriorated desk with her head in her hands.

Sona just stopped in front of her best friend/rival, "Having a rough time, Rias?"

The slightly younger heiress nodded, "What did I do to deserve having a peerage like this?"

Sona shrugged thoughtfully, "You had a heart, which is a lot more than I can say for those who were formerly a part of many of your peerage members past lives."

Rias glared slightly at her best friend, "I sometimes feel like they should consider me heartless."

Sona raised an eyebrow while pushing her glasses up with an index finger, "And why would that be Rias? Is it because in many of the situations our kind are restrained by the factional politics? The situations were such that you or your brother had to manipulate the situation to such a degree that would enable you to help them without starting a war. Your brother and you are both very kind-hearted, but your power is suited for battle and war. Your brother and you have always had to tread carefully, even should something resembling true peace come about between the factions, that won't change."

Rias pouted slightly, "I don't want to be manipulative though."

Sona chuckled, "If my (slight shudder) sister is to be believed, then neither did your brother. He was kind and wanted to help everyone he could, but he had to learn to be manipulative in order to be the leader of the Underworld and navigate his way around those old farts on the council. Kind of like what my sister said her former husband was like, actually."

Rias shook her head, "He is actually the main reason I don't want to be manipulative. He was able to do so much for the Underworld by being a straightforward and upright person who used his power to protect others."

Sona shook her head, "But in the end the Demon Marbas sacrificed himself. He used his powers to protect others, yes, but it cost him his life and my sister her heart."

Rias sighed, "But that doesn't change the fact that he was a hero in the Underworld. He was more like a saint than any of the older demons ever were, especially my ancestor."

Sona raised her eyebrow yet again, "What do you mean?"

Rias held up her hand and summoned the Gremory Seal, "Issei's Sacred Gear told me that the original Gremory built a curse into his seal that would ensure that his descendants would eventually all be super-devils. In fact, if I have a child with Riser and still possess this seal, then giving birth to the kid would kill me and the child would be capable of annihilating all but the most powerful beings of our world. Most likely, any kid I have will end up killing me with their power."

Sona did not have any way she could respond to her friend after that, so the two sat in a fairly companionable silence until it was time to send Issei to the first job he had gotten that wasn't him replacing one of the others. Even though he had only done about one or two of those so far, and he had told her afterwards that he didn't ever want to go to either of those places ever again.


End file.
